I am slowly convincing myself that ST, more specifically its relation to fatigue at the time of free throw attempts, plays a noticeable role in a player's FT percentages. Examples: (each player from same DII team)

                   FT grade     FT percent     Min. per game     Stamina
Player A          B                  .667                    17.5                    71                               
Player B          B-                .676                     23.2                   83        
Player C          B-                .804                    17.8                    86         
Player D          D+               .628                    13.1                    80

It seems as though C (with higher ST) is outperforming A, despite the lower grade and equal playing time. Also, player B seems to be under performing, which I think could be related to his stamina to playing time ratio. Player D, while largely used to increase the data set, could be argued as over performing within the context of my hypothesis.

Disclosure: I haven't taken the time to go through each game (23 total) in the attempt collect data about the players' probable fatigue at the time of each attempt and the corresponding success/failure, so I tried to use players having similar amounts of free throw attempts (between 34 and 46). I'm willing to provide more examples from this team and others to support the trend in question, although they will not meet the strict criteria for this experiment.

Lastly, does anyone know if its possible to fully utilize the WIS website from a blackberry?       

nacho, I believe you are 100% right -- that stamina plays a large role in ft shooting, which it should not. I encourage you to send a ticket.

Agreed. However I think it not a linear progression of FT shooting woes/fatigue. I would bet that the difference between a player who is fresh vs. one who has played a few minutes is not very significant. However, as a player progresses more and more into the realm of being tired their FT shooting woes accelerate.

Basically, (this is a very simplistic example).

Fresh- 70%, Fairly Fresh - 69%, Getting Tired - 67%, Tired - 63%, Very Tired - 55%.

So as long as a player plays within the limitations of their STA rating you expect this player to average somewhere around 68-69%. But if you play them where they are playing way too many minutes that average will start to drop quickly.

Don't know how this model holds up to actual in game results. But this is how I have always pictured STA v. FT and it seems to mesh pretty well with what I've seen.

serb, your thoughts mirror the assumptions I used when developing my model. I don't really have any issue with this correlation, but I do think it is a little disproportioned. I use player fatigue to control substitutions, and not often does a player remain on the court long enough to become tired. So, it is a little frustrating when a player's overall average is 8 to 10 percent (or more) below what their reasonable average should be, despite them having never been consistently overworked.

I don't want to get into a ton of real life scenarios concerning how much a player can recuperate between the time a foul is called and the time they shoot the ball, but even at the most desperate of times we've all taken a few deep breathes and knocked down the big one. Fatigue certainly has an effect, but not to that extent. How often can it be said that a coach overused a player(s) to the extent that a good FT shooter performed only average for an entire season?     

Posted by daalter on 8/10/2010 7:14:00 AM (view original):
nacho, I believe you are 100% right -- that stamina plays a large role in ft shooting, which it should not. I encourage you to send a ticket.

As far as Basketball goes stamina is something i think is the most important part of FT shooting. Every coach i know has you shoot FT at the end of practice to get used to using tired arms in legs. Hell my varsity coach would have us shoot only after doing line drills at some point in practice.

I've never seen that stamina was not involved in FT shooting for HD. Perhaps it is in the coding somewhere to allow this but just not as noticable or talked about that much.

Posted by docmastermd on 8/10/2010 1:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by daalter on 8/10/2010 7:14:00 AM (view original):
nacho, I believe you are 100% right -- that stamina plays a large role in ft shooting, which it should not. I encourage you to send a ticket.

As far as Basketball goes stamina is something i think is the most important part of FT shooting. Every coach i know has you shoot FT at the end of practice to get used to using tired arms in legs. Hell my varsity coach would have us shoot only after doing line drills at some point in practice.

I've never seen that stamina was not involved in FT shooting for HD. Perhaps it is in the coding somewhere to allow this but just not as noticable or talked about that much.

I can empathize with your experiences. My varsity coach was (although brilliant and a legend in my state) a sadistic Bob Knight wannabe that had all types of end-of-practice games like you mentioned. His favorite was making each varsity player shoot a free throw between line sprints (we call them suicides) and if each player made their FT then practice was over, but if someone missed then we would have to start all over again. On his cruelest of days he would do the same thing, except instead of players he would require the student managers (typically some unathletic chick) to make 5 in a row before we could stop.

The point being that if you were going to be in any way associated with his team, then you better be able to make a f****** free throw.      

I agree that stamina does have an affect on better FT% but I wouldn't necessarily take player C to make a FT over player A.

First off, the % can be pretty random when you're looking at such a few amount of FTs. 
 
Player C  (Gass) has shot 14/14 in games in which playing 19+ minutes.  When playing 18 minutes or less he's 23/32, 72%.  
Player A (Thompson) is 11/13, 85% when playing 19+ minutes.  In games in which he's played less than 19 he's 13/23, 57%.
That's a combined 25/27, 93% for 19+ minutes  vs.  36/55, 65% for under 19.

If I just judged on that arbitrary cutoff of 19 minutes per game, I'd assume the more minutes played the better FT shooter.

I don't think your statistics there would necessarily be inconsistent with what I was talking about above.

I think the total minutes player is not a factor at all. The only way that is affecting FT is that a player playing 20 minutes vs a player playing 10 minutes will likely spend slightly more time on the court at greater levels of fatigue.

It has nothing to do with how many minutes a player has played. It depends on a player's specific fatigue level at the time of the FT.

So if a player plays 30 minutes in a game but takes most of his FT's when he is still fresh you would expect him to make them at or near his FT average. While a player who came in and only player 10 minutes, but player them consecutively, so that he is tired or very tired at the end of his stint. If he is taking free throws while in the stage of tired or very tired you would expect him to underperform.

In that case a player who played considerably more minutes has out performed a player who didn't play many minutes. All due to the actual fatigue level of when the FTs took place.

More or less lol.

Posted by nachopuzzle on 8/10/2010 2:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by docmastermd on 8/10/2010 1:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by daalter on 8/10/2010 7:14:00 AM (view original):
nacho, I believe you are 100% right -- that stamina plays a large role in ft shooting, which it should not. I encourage you to send a ticket.

As far as Basketball goes stamina is something i think is the most important part of FT shooting. Every coach i know has you shoot FT at the end of practice to get used to using tired arms in legs. Hell my varsity coach would have us shoot only after doing line drills at some point in practice.

I've never seen that stamina was not involved in FT shooting for HD. Perhaps it is in the coding somewhere to allow this but just not as noticable or talked about that much.

I can empathize with your experiences. My varsity coach was (although brilliant and a legend in my state) a sadistic Bob Knight wannabe that had all types of end-of-practice games like you mentioned. His favorite was making each varsity player shoot a free throw between line sprints (we call them suicides) and if each player made their FT then practice was over, but if someone missed then we would have to start all over again. On his cruelest of days he would do the same thing, except instead of players he would require the student managers (typically some unathletic chick) to make 5 in a row before we could stop.

The point being that if you were going to be in any way associated with his team, then you better be able to make a f****** free throw.      

Hahaha same here. We would do a 1 and 1. miss the first suicide, miss the second two up and backs running backwords. would go down the list alphabetically.

Posted by Iguana1 on 8/10/2010 2:51:00 PM (view original):
I agree that stamina does have an affect on better FT% but I wouldn't necessarily take player C to make a FT over player A.

First off, the % can be pretty random when you're looking at such a few amount of FTs. 
 
Player C  (Gass) has shot 14/14 in games in which playing 19+ minutes.  When playing 18 minutes or less he's 23/32, 72%.  
Player A (Thompson) is 11/13, 85% when playing 19+ minutes.  In games in which he's played less than 19 he's 13/23, 57%.
That's a combined 25/27, 93% for 19+ minutes  vs.  36/55, 65% for under 19.

If I just judged on that arbitrary cutoff of 19 minutes per game, I'd assume the more minutes played the better FT shooter.

I noticed these damning statistics as well, and completely agree the limited individual totals leave much to be desired. However, only 2 players on that team have over 50 attempts on the season, therefore I selected the the larger sample size despite the lower data set (since a probability analysis with sample size of 1 is meaningless, and using 2 just seems lazy). The individuals were selected because they had both the similarities and differences needed to succinctly demonstrate my argument, and are not the only examples on which I based my conclusions.

Some of the players on my DIII team reflected these assumptions last season, but I am cautious of heavy dependence on them (individual game stats erased) despite allowing for a sample size of 4 individuals having overall attempts ranging from 58 to 89. F*** it, lets run the numbers,"a failed hypothesis is never in vain because it leaves you one step closer to the truth." Examples: (ST and FT are adjusted to reflect the totals at seasons end)

                    FT grade     FT percent     Min. per game     Stamina  
Player A             B                 .753                    23.9                  79                 
Player B             B-               .793                    15.8                   89 
Player C            B-                .696                    26.9                  85        
Player D            C                 .640                    28.3                  90                   
Player E            C-                .569                    28.9                  95

Outcome - The model correctly predicts the relationship between the variables/percentages of players A, B, and C. While the relationship between C and D exposes the crudeness of this exercise because each player has an advantage in one of the variables defined as being indicative of success; therefore, since neither variable is weighted, no outcome can be made by measuring the difference between FT percentages.

Interpretation - He must be Neo because he can see the matrix!  Player B (with lowest min. per game & highest ST) had highest FT% amongst players with similar/better FT grades. Also, the relationships between the pairs of A & C and D & E can be analyzed simultaneously because in both instances the players with  higher FT grades and lower minutes per game (A and D) had better FT% than the players with higher ST (C and E).

Conclusion - This is only the second (albeit the 2nd successfullish) testing of these parameters, and most likely doesn't mean s***. However, this becomes a touch more interesting given each player's position and eligibility: A (redshirt fr, sg), B (soph, sg), C (soph, sg), D (sen, c), and E (sen, c). Lastly, while I was doing this, the room darkened, techno music began playing in the background, and logical proofs slowly floated through the air, just like it happened to that kid in Little Man Tate and zerocool from Hackers. Seriously.        

http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=3068

Posted by serb0649 on 8/10/2010 3:09:00 PM (view original):
I don't think your statistics there would necessarily be inconsistent with what I was talking about above.

I think the total minutes player is not a factor at all. The only way that is affecting FT is that a player playing 20 minutes vs a player playing 10 minutes will likely spend slightly more time on the court at greater levels of fatigue.

It has nothing to do with how many minutes a player has played. It depends on a player's specific fatigue level at the time of the FT.

So if a player plays 30 minutes in a game but takes most of his FT's when he is still fresh you would expect him to make them at or near his FT average. While a player who came in and only player 10 minutes, but player them consecutively, so that he is tired or very tired at the end of his stint. If he is taking free throws while in the stage of tired or very tired you would expect him to underperform.

In that case a player who played considerably more minutes has out performed a player who didn't play many minutes. All due to the actual fatigue level of when the FTs took place.

More or less lol.

Yes, on all these points we are in total agreement. Sorry if I sounded in any way critical or if I'm just misinterpreting this latest post. I thought that I said something about this being purely a statistical analysis, because I was too lazy to go through each play-by-play in order to collect data concerning the assumed player fatigue (at the time of every FT) of each player and the corresponding outcome (make/miss).